Report: Sheriff didn’t investigate abuse claims

The Associated Press

Published: December 3, 2013;Last modified: December 3, 2013 11:24AM

DENVER — The Denver Sheriff’s Department failed to investigate dozens of serious allegations of deputy misconduct over the past two years, including inmate claims that deputies choked them, sexually harassed them and used racial slurs, an independent monitor said.

The Denver Office of the Independent Monitor said the Sheriff’s Department investigated only nine of 54 serious grievances filed between January 2011 and June 30, 2013, The Denver Post reported Tuesday (http://tinyurl.com/l7yc425 ).

Inmates filed a total of 861 complaints in that period.

The monitor’s report did not say whether any of the allegations were true, only that some were serious enough to warrant an internal affairs investigation.

The Sheriff’s Department has about 730 deputies who primarily oversee jails and transport inmates in the city and county of Denver.

The Sheriff’s Department also failed to routinely notify the monitor’s office of misconduct complaints, as city ordinance requires, the monitor said. Some deputies reported they were told they could not refer grievances to the department’s internal affairs investigators without notifying supervisors first.

The monitor said the uninvestigated inmate allegations included inappropriate force, sexual misconduct and bias. Inmates accused deputies of inappropriately striking them, choking them, slamming them into walls, doors or the floor or stunning them with Tasers.

Some inmates said deputies made racial or ethnic slurs or insulted them about their sexual orientation. Others said deputies inappropriately touched them, threatened them with violence or denied them access to medical care.

The report didn’t discuss the specifics of the allegations.

Director of Corrections Gary Wilson has ordered internal affairs investigations into 47 of the complaints.

The report said 788 of the inmate grievances alleged misconduct by deputies, and 125 of those were filed against just four deputies. The report did not identify them by name.

The report said just six inmates accounted for 50 of the allegations of deputy misconduct.